Butch will care to have me bringing people to see him, especially three at a time, and
especially from Brooklyn. You know Big Butch has a very bad disposition, and there is
no telling what he may say to me if he does not like the idea of me taking you to him.'
'Everything is very kosher,' Harry the Horse says. 'You need not be afraid of anything
whatever. We have a business proposition for Big Butch. It means a nice score for him,
so you take us to him at once, or the chances are I will have to put the arm on somebody
around here.'
Well, as the only one around there for him to put the arm on at this time seems to be me, I
can see where it will be good policy for me to take these parties to Big Butch especially
as the last of my gefillte fish is just going down Little Isadore's gullet, and Spanish John
is finishing up my potatoes, and is donking a piece of rye bread in my coffee, so there is
nothing more for me to eat.
So I lead them over into West Forty-ninth Street, near Tenth Avenue, where Big Butch
lives on the ground floor of an old brownstone-front house, and who is sitting out on the
stoop but Big Butch himself. In fact, everybody in the neighbourhood is sitting out on the
front stoops over there, including women and children, because sitting out on the front
stoops is quite a custom in this section.
Big Butch is peeled down to his undershirt and pants, and he has no shoes on his feet, as
Big Butch is a guy who loves his comfort. Furthermore, he is smoking a cigar, and laid
out on the stoop beside him on a blanket is a little baby with not much clothes on. This
baby seems to be asleep, and every now and then Big Butch fans it with a folded
newspaper to shoo away the mosquitoes that wish to nibble on the baby. These
mosquitoes come across the river from the Jersey side on hot nights and they seem to be
very fond of babies.
'Hello, Butch,' I say, as we stop in front of the stoop.
'Sh-h-h-h!' Butch says, pointing at the baby, and making more noise with his shush than
an engine blowing off steam. Then he gets up and tiptoes down to the sidewalk where we
are standing, and I am hoping that Butch feels all right, because when Butch does not feel
so good he is apt to be very short with one and all. He is a guy of maybe six foot two and
a couple of feet wide, and he has big hairy hands and a mean look.
In fact, Big Butch is known all over this man's town as a guy you must not monkey with
in any respect, so it takes plenty of weight off me when I see that he seems to know the
parties from Brooklyn, and nods at them very friendly, especially at Harry the Horse.
And right away Harry states a most surprising proposition to Big Butch.
It seems that there is a big coal company which has an office in an old building down in
West Eighteenth Street, and in this office is a safe, and in this safe is the company pay
roll of twenty thousand dollars cash money. Harry the Horse knows the money is there